Elections — like roller-coaster rides and horror movies — can keep us in an unhealthy state of high anxiety, individually and together.

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THURSDAY, Oct. 11,
2012 — In much the same way a horror movie makes your
heart race and saliva tinny, the upcoming election has inspired fear and
anxiety among Americans.

Witness "Murder by Wheelchair," a parody video of the current health care election debate, produced by FlackCheck.org, part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The video injects humor into the heated and emotional suggestion that the Affordable Care Act would send Medicare patients off the cliff, literally.

"I've had patients
who are more or less besides them self with uncertainty that 'if this person
gets elected' or 'that person gets elected,' " says clinical psychologist
Dr. Berney
Wilkinson in Lakeland, Fla., "everything we know in the
U.S. is going to come to an end." As in, he said, the end of the
world.

Uncertainty, insecurity, fear-mongering and
anger are staples of election campaigns, most famously in 1964 when candidate
Lyndon B. Johnson got voters' attention with a commercial
showing a sweet, young girl who plucked the petals off a
daisy in a countdown that ended with an image of an atomic explosion.
"Vote for President Johnson on November 3," instructed the deep,
ominous voiceover. "The stakes are too high for you to stay home."

But
fear and loathing have been used so much this by campaigners in the current
election season that the average citizen is showing up at his South Florida
office worried about national and global viability, says Dr. Wilkinson, who
practices privately and teaches at Webster University and University of South
Florida.

"If this candidate is elected, jobs
will be lost and China will take over the world!" are other patient
worries, he said. "It's very unfortunate because there are people who
believe everything they read, and then suffer from anxiety and can't cope with
it."

Before you smirk at the weak and gullible,
consider two of Wilkinson's patients who have expressed above-average fear and
anxiety over how Armageddon is likely to befall the United States come
November: One is 11 years old; the other, 14.

Wilkinson
says the children's parents "are not particularly political," and the
unrelated youths report hearing the Doomsday message on political ads and in
discussions at school. Women, he noticed, seem to register higher anxiety than
his male patients. A recently released study said women
who read negative news remember it better than men do, and have
stronger stress responses in subsequent stress tests, according to Sonia Lupien
and colleagues from the University of Montreal, Quebec.

This
prolonged physical response is unhealthy, says Wilkinson. The threatening
message sends a psychological response that starts a cascade via the limbic
system, washing a glandular, involuntary response of stress hormones like
cortisol and adrenaline though the system. Ironically, this can lead to the
opposite of what candidates and campaigns seek to achieve.

"I'm
noticing specific symptoms more now than in the past," he says. "I
see more Doomsday perspectives. You know, it's taking a toll on people's
ability to decide."

And it's not just women and
children, as evidenced by research conducted by the American Association of
Retired People (AARP). The group issued the results of their Anxiety Index in
August, showing 70 percent of non-retired Baby Boomers — those older
than 50 — experiencing high
anxiety over the campaign and issues.

The AARP
voter survey revealed anxiety over inflation, taxes, the
opportunity to retire, financial security during retirement, and the affordability
of healthcare. The respondents asked for more information on the candidates'
plans to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, the index
said. "And they're upset that candidates aren't paying more
attention to those issues," said AARP's Web site.

The
Sources of Election Anger

A University of
Michigan study in May 2011 found a nuance in voter's response to political
messages: When citizens could respond to a specific person or entity, they said
they felt anger. But without someone or something to blame, people became more angry and
anxious.

"It reminds me of the
Hunger
Games type of thing where you're in constant fear of
something bad happening unless you fight to the death to save yourself,"
says Wilkinson of the books and movie in which teens live in a culture in which
they fight to the death over resources. "It's not helping physiologically.
It's creating chronic anxiety and impacts on our dietary habits ... and leads
to a culture of unhealthiness that can be boiled down to this chronic
anxiety."

Does it get better?

If your candidate wins, you will likely feel
quick relief, Wilkinson says. After the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the
Affordable Care Act, seen as an intense political fight that polarized the
country, many Americans reported a sense of relief and a desire to move on.

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